Conservative bloggers have arrived at the "anger" stage of grieving, going so far as to accuse contract developers of sabotaging the Mitt Romney campaign's "get out the vote" efforts. But Romney campaign Digital Director Zac Moffatt told Ars that Project Orca was relatively successful—and that it was not a determining factor in Romney's election-night loss.

Project Orca was a Web-based app developed to help the Romney campaign track which supporters had voted and to help poll watchers report any potential voter suppression, fraud, or other irregularities back to the campaign for follow-up by its legal team. Volunteers at polls across the country were to access Orca from their smartphones and feed all data back to the main Romney campaign site inside the Boston Garden. But, as we reported, Orca caused widespread frustration after user credentials were issued improperly. At one point during election day, Comcast cut off inbound traffic to Orca's servers because it was mistaken for a denial of service attack. And even while the system was working, the high volume of data being sent to the server caused such slow response that it appeared to some users that the system had crashed.

Here's how Moffatt described the problems a few days ago to CNET: "The primary issue was we beta-tested in a different environment than the Garden [Boston Garden, where the 800 campaign staffers were working]. There was so much data coming in—1200 records or more per minute—it shut down the system for a time. Users were frustrated by lag, and some people dropped off and we experienced attrition as a result."

When I spoke with him today, Moffatt didn't call Orca a success, and he acknowledged frustration with the system. But he also insisted things weren't quite as dire as some accounts from frustrated volunteers suggested. "I can tell you that data from 91 percent of counties in the targeted states came in," Moffatt said, "and that we had 14.5 million people who were marked as having voted. And there were 4,397 reports of incidents that we were able to pass to our legal department."

A compressed schedule played a role in Orca's difficulties, but there were other factors. While it tapped into data collected by the Web and mobile efforts of Moffatt's digital campaign operations, a separate team developed Orca. According to multiple sources familiar with Orca, the project was overseen by Romney campaign Director of Voter Contact Dan Centinello and did not involve developers working for Moffatt's operations, such as devs from Targeted Victory—the company co-founded by Moffatt—and from mobile developer Rockfish Interactive. Moffatt said he didn't even see the Orca project's code until it went live on election day.

Listen all y'all, this is sabotage?

"For whatever reasons, the conservative bloggers have latched onto Orca as the reason it all fell apart," Moffatt added. Those bloggers have suggested that developers with Democratic sympathies somehow acted as a fifth column within the Romney camp. Targeted Victory was singled out by some bloggers because a few of its developers worked for Al Gore in the past.

"Why do they have Al Gore's dev working on Romney's social media development?!" blogger Catherine Ann Fitzpatrick asked. "Truly, how can they expect dedication?" She also singled out another developer who is African-American and "who has a 96 percent chance of being an Obama voter… I will be accused of 'racism' for even flagging. But it's the truth."

Moffatt said that this kind of thinking puts too much faith in a single piece of software. "Anyone who knows campaigns knows this was all baked in before that day—there was no magic, Orca wasn't a silver bullet," he said. "But on the flip side, when you're on a campaign that has only six months of infrastructure time, sometimes you have to throw a Hail Mary. It's really hard to go up against someone who has four years of lead time."

As far as Orca drawing away volunteers who could have been involved in less high-tech get-out-the-vote efforts, Moffatt also disagreed with the bloggers. "Some people are saying if those 37,000 people went out and each brought 20 more voters to the polls, it would have changed the result," he said. "But that would assume we knew the 20 people who weren't going out and voting."

What about the decision to outsource Orca instead of assigning it to a group like Targeted Victory? Moffatt says that too was the right decision. "We don't build things like that; we're not a firm that would build it," he said. "If we had built it, it would have broken—we know our limitations." Nor was Orca a good fit for the other companies that the Romney campaign relied on for voter engagement apps and Web development.

Ars attempted to contact members of the Orca development team for further comment through various channels, without success.

466 Reader Comments

She also singled out another developer who is African-American and "who has a 96 percent chance of being an Obama voter… I will be accused of 'racism' for even flagging. But it's the truth."

I will be accused of 'racism' for ... making the totally racist accusation that this developer can not be trusted because of their race ...

No. People who vote for Obama cannot be trusted to be enthusiastic and diligent in the Romney campaign.

That's very different than saying somebody can't be trusted due to their race. A black coder can be trusted to run systems for banks or colleges or restaurants or hospitals. Who cares? Race is immaterial to your ability and experience.

This is hysterical. The cognitive dissonance is absolutely mind-boggling.

She also singled out another developer who is African-American and "who has a 96 percent chance of being an Obama voter… I will be accused of 'racism' for even flagging. But it's the truth."

I will be accused of 'racism' for ... making the totally racist accusation that this developer can not be trusted because of their race ...

No. People who vote for Obama cannot be trusted to be enthusiastic and diligent in the Romney campaign.

That's very different than saying somebody can't be trusted due to their race. A black coder can be trusted to run systems for banks or colleges or restaurants or hospitals. Who cares? Race is immaterial to your ability and experience.

This is hysterical. The cognitive dissonance is absolutely mind-boggling.

Imagine a world where not everything is driven by the partisan politics of the presidential campaign. catfitz simply cannot seem to do that, and therein lies the problem. God forbid anybody show up to work and do their job without being suspect unless they cheerlead for a particular candidate. This argument is just a microcosm for what's corroding our political system; fringe elements of the population with zero critical thinking skills howling about problems whose solutions far outstrip their mental faculties. It isn't about right and wrong anymore, it's about winning at all costs and that somehow if you win, Jesus wins. Even if the candidate and their platform is wrong.

It's a cascade of people not directly related to Romney or even Moffat. That's the problem in part.

A system broke that had to serve half of America on election day. I don't view that as accidental. I don't see that it is a conspiracy. But I think malign neglect has to be viewed seriously and accountability taken.

Because they failed to properly test the software. I'm not a programmer; my background is military and law enforcement, but even I can tell you that if you do not practice how you fight (i.e. just shy of actually killing each other in my case) when it comes time to fight you're not going to be up to the task. This isn't some insane revelation, nor is it suddenly vindicated empirical data. This is, as Rumsfeld would say, a known known. Something we've known about forever, really, at least as far back as the Marquis de Lafayette was instructing Colonial soldiers.

You imply conspiracy. People with technical and procedural backgrounds are going to chuckle at you. The louder you get, the more likely those people become to ridicule you.

catfitz40 wrote:

I don't suggest anything of the sort about black people. In fact, all the major pundits, whether Maureen Dowd or anyone in the liberal media you'd like to name, are suggesting this. They say that Romney lost because minorities have increased, white people have decreased in the population, and minorities voted big time for Obama because they felt unwelcome by the GOP. They see racial groups as blocs. They give us the statistics to back it up: 96% of blacks voted for Obama.

But you implied that having a black developer on staff was a "security risk" and "problematic." I realize you're probably lily-white and there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not the modern America. Half my father's family is WASP. I'm not quite (some Sicilian and Swede in me). Some of my cousins are African American; I'm not being euphemistic. They're half black Americans who were born in Africa. I have other cousins who are half Vietnamese or Hmong. On my mom's side I have half-Cuban cousins.

catfitz40 wrote:

And all the pundits have characterized Romney's loss as a function of him being "too white," not having enough support and outreach to Hispanics, blacks and others. We are told again and again that bitter old white men with guns and religion voted for Romney; Obama had warned us they might be "clinging". The news that 35 percent of white men nonetheless voted for Obama, which means even southerners or even old guys or even rich guys just isn't something Maureen Dowd wants to be telling you now, it doesn't fit her paradigmn.

Romney wasn't "too white," being white is a net wash as far as election politics go. For every vote you lose for being white, you pick up for being white (assuming your opponent is not white, then the race card isn't played at all).

There's also very little empirical evidence to support "old guys" and "southerners" voting for Obama. There is, obviously, plenty of empirical evidence that "rich guys" voted for him. The idea that there's some sort of economic line in the political sand is asinine. But Obama's supporters were by and large younger (under 55), less white, and northerners (California and Florida being what they are: outliers).

catfitz40 wrote:

So like it or not, they've set up a formula whereby every black person is viewed as an Obama supporter with Nate Silver like precision, and every white person is viewed as a Romney supporter unless they can prove otherwise.

Nate Silver knows better than to work from that sort of logical fallacy. Have you even read his breakdowns on ethnic representation in the election? He struggled to justify the overwhelming support from minorities for Obama even when the numbers gave every indication it was the ground truth.

catfitz40 wrote:

If you're going to say that people voting for their racial group is ignorant and prejudiced (as white men are doing, so you say), then you have to be willing to say that about all groups, and you're not. For you, it's magical that blacks all vote for good Obama, and it's evil that whites vote for bad Romney in such large numbers.

No, I freely admit that being [color] and voting for a [color] president ipso facto is as stupid as voting down a party line.

catfitz40 wrote:

Just what is that reality that you want those white men to get in touch with?

The reality that you yourself (not me) are identifying -- "The vast majority of people voting for him [Obama]are uneducated, ill-informed, and in no way should be influencing any sort of policy. Nonetheless, they are not outright bigots, and for that I applaud them."

That isn't a reality that anyone should be forced to get in touch with. They should reject it. If blacks -- as you say -- vote for Obama only because they are uneducated and ill-informed, then why should whites get in touch with this "reality"? They shouldn't. They should patiently work for education.

What the fuck?

I think Affirmative Action is as detrimental to the development of minorities in this country, but it's not simply because it's judging a person by the color of their skin. It's primarily because it's a salve that fails to address the underlying problems that generate this state of existence where minorities actually need something like Affirmative Action to offset the disadvantages they face in key aspects of education.

But don't assume they're all uneducated, or ill-informed, or should "in no way be influencing any sort of policy," because that is the equivalent of me saying you should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and leave the politicking to the men. (I'm not. I genuinely believe that having women involved in political discourse is important.) My black cousins are all college graduates. Three of them have graduate degrees. They are all employed. One is a software developer.

catfitz40 wrote:

You also can't show how it is you're finding this low-educated ill-informed people suddenly not outright bigots, when indeed they may be if they can only vote for someone of their own race.

I think it's about something different, and not about "uneducated blacks". I think it's about a politics of the left that creates identity-driven blocs and manipulates them. And I don't want to live in a society like that.

It's not about all blacks adopting Marxism or Marxist rhetoric at all; that's not the point. It's about political operatives within the Obama campaign, and Obama himself and his closest aides, believing since youth in these Marxist memes. The point is that the Marxist movement concept of identity politics, blocs of voters or constituents in society like "the Estonians" or "the Udmurts" or "the Jews" are how the Soviets ran things -- and disastrously. And that carried over to leftist politics ever since the SDS and Port Huron, if not before.

Marxism's identity politics is built around the premise of economic identity blocs.

1. My comment is not racist. I made a report that the developers in the company tasked to make Romney's aps were Obama voters. How can you expect them to work with zeal and dedication to help Romney?!

They're professionals. They can be relied upon to do the job they're being paid to do or they're not a good employee. Period.

catfitz40 wrote:

2. The numerous outlets are crying the blues about all these problems Romney suffered, and arguing whether they lost the Hispanics over failure to embrace immigration reform, or lost Ohio over the op-ed about not bailing out Detroit, or whatever, but not so many are focusing precisely on Orca. So that's what has to be looked at here.

Most outlets are looking at likely causes, not just "possible" ones. Thus far the only injustice being done is that they're not seriously examining the possibility that it was the platform that failed and not some "problem" that derailed Romney's candidacy.

Oh, my. Does Ars Technica have ideological purity of this nature? I had no idea.

Identity politics *is* a Marxist concept and has been for decades. There's nothing wrong with reporting that. You're just knee-jerking to the very word "socialism" being uttered because you have a string of associations with this. You imagine people lose their jobs and get blacklisted and pilloried if you criticize their views as socialist. But there's no call to make anyone be blacklisted or lose their jobs. There's a call to be able to freely criticize bad ideologies that harm people like socialism.

Few things: Socialism is a socio-economic system that has it's upsides and downsides. Just like capitalism. It would be quite disingenious to unilaterlally declare that socialism does bad things and only bad things. I would say that a system that was 100% socialist or 100% capitalist wouldn't really be ideal for anyone. Which is why no country in the world is 100% capitalistic or 100% socialistic.

And to call Obama "socialist" or "marxist" is just stupid. You wouldn't know what either of those were if it bit you in the ass.

Quote:

But I *am* interested in process. And I get *precious little* understanding of *process* from you all on a geeky forum like this, yanno? And that is frigging scary.

Well, in my opinion, this is a problem of management and testing. Even if there was a Obama mole in the developement-team (and that's a big if), good project-management and proper testing would have uncovered any issues there might have been. But it seems this software was rushed to production without proper testing.

Now, you might ask "are these problems result of sabotage by Obama-moles?". My answer to that is: "Never attribute to malice that could be equally explained by incompetence". To support your argument, you need to

a) prove that there was sabotageb) prove that the coders in the team voted Obama

Quote:

Programmers must be held responsible for software that doesn't work; that's just basic. You don't say garage mechanics aren't held responsible if cars don't work, and only the CEO of GM takes responsibility. That would be ridiculous. Coders are garage mechanics. They just haven't realized that yet : )

If my car breaks down, I don't blame some individual assembly-line worker at the car-plant. I might blame the management, who decided to rush the car in to production without proper Q&A. I might blame myself for not taking proper care of my car or doing something I was not supposed to do.

Quote:

Who cares about "concrete and court-worthy evidence" that black/former Al Gore devs voted for Obama? There's about a 100 percent chance that they did, and your faux binary thinking here and pretense that we need court-worthy proof is just yet another example of how crampled narrow programmer thinkers cannot be trusted to run our real lives -- our real lives that have been moved online.

OK, show me your evidence that shows that these people voted for Obama? Because one of them was black, and blacks vote for Obama? And I bet that there were tons of white males in Obama's team, and as we know, Romney got a huge share of white males votes. What does any of this prove? Nothing.

What about the former Gore-dev? What about him? Colin Powell, a Republican, voted for Obama. Again: what does any of this prove? Two things: jack and shit.

Quote:

The pin numbers? But those were automatically generated, and then automatically sent out wrong somehow. That's why we need to know the firm that made this software, what it's over-warching principles were, what it's mission was, and now it failed in that mission.

If it was Accenture, then it's principles and mission was to extract maximum value for minimum of effort, in order to maximise shareholder-value.

Quote:

That really is Marxist identity politics going wild.

you keep using that word. I don't think it means what you tink it means...

No. I made the statement to try to get people to think and go to the next round.

Having Obama voters on your team working with critical technology when you are a Republican is just plain whack.

And they either a) deliberately tampered with the software or b) were casually and cynically neglectful. And that's because they weren't believers in Romney.

It's not a wild assumption to guess that Al Gore's dev is going to vote Democratic or that a black coder is going to vote for Obama. These are facts of life. So the question is, how do we, in a democratic society, ensure that the other side -- the only other party in our sorry two-party system -- get fairness?

Because we didn't get fairness. The techies were completely indifferent/negligent/malicious or all three. And it failed. Technology doesn't fail just because some dingus went 1200 per second or didn't. People are involved. They didn't step up for Romney. Why? Your problem with this is that you keep viewing it as some isolated incident of software malfunctioning that doesn't matter to you and has nothing to do with anything. But if you were voting for Romney, this is a disenfranchising software that literally took away your democracy. And I'm sorry, when that happens -- or if it appears to have happened -- I don't care whom I offend by asking politically-correct questions about it. I want answers.

[/quote]

Ugh.. your comments are embarrassing to read. It's like listening to a crazy person rant while everyone else has to stare at the ground awkwardly. I don't even understand your take on the situation. Disenfranchisement implies Orcas failure actually prevented people from voting. Based on my understanding of the project, that claim doesn't even make logical sense.

I always have to wonder if people like you are the real saboteurs. A political agent provocateur, if you will. Your doing more and more damage to your professed party the farther into crazed-paranoia-land you go. If not, what is your end goal here? To prove that Romney was grossly incompetent at managing his own campaign? If so, congratulations, you succeeded. I wasn't even thinking about it in those terms when I first read about the failure of Orca. Thanks to your muck raking, I now realize that Romney shouldn't be in charge of running a shoe store, much less the most powerful nation in the world.

It's obvious you don't even have a tacit grasp on the things you're trying to talk about... "technology doesn't fail because some dingus went 1200 things per seconds or didn't"... Jesus Christ. You should print that quote out, frame it, then stare at it while seriously rethinking what you're doing with your life.

I think it is my duty as a blogger to publish the names of firms or people who have messed up aps for the Romney campaign. Why not?

Because you're going to publish these names and addresses you've been demanding and blame these programmers for Romney's loss, and the wacko down the street is going to shoot one of them in the back of the head.

catfitz40 wrote:

There's nothing crazy about what I'm saying because it's basic common sense. If you believe that political beliefs and your voting choice means nothing in doing the job, then tell me why you don't go work for the GOP tomorrow and fix their code. Ok, then. Knock it off with the attacks.

Thanks, I'd rather predict earthquakes for the Italian government. At least then I'd get an appeal, and would only be facing a life sentence.

Help me out here. I read about this project that failed, and I can't see any mention of the political affiliation of the software developers involved. How am I supposed to figure out who to shoot if they won't tell me which one is "Al Gore's dev"?

Not to mention the fact that voters get disillusioned of a candidate. Maybe the guy who coded for Gore had switched sides b/c he didn't like the way the country was going. It happens. Oh look, now they're a Romney supporter and teh software is stil buggy. Now who do we blame for sabotage!?

As is all too typical of conservative talking heads in America, they look for all the incidental things to blame a loss on, rather than considering the emerging reality of their platform not appealing to the current majority and that they face the reality of being left behind in the crazy corner as demographics continue to shift against them.

this is hilarious, republicans should be embarrassed at Cait's ridiculous conspiracy theories.There may be plenty of conservative ideas that I like & ascribe top, but there is too much embracement of batshit crazy within thwe party and too little willingness to look within to say things like "don't be an idiot". It's taken years for right leaning news sources to even _start_ raising an eyebrow at obvious fairy tails (to put it kindly). They still have a long way to go... but geez http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 1lJ3tfQFpc "is this just math that you tell yourself to feel better, or is this real" = "good sir, you appear to be full of shit!"

Cait, put away the crazy hat, accept that you were grossly mistaken on just about every point you made in this thread. The "blame some low level coder (who almost certainly had zero input on hosting orca on a repurposed desktop in the back room instead of going with a professional hosting solution managed by professionals)" meme is ridiculous. Not only is it ridiculous, but combined with Romney running on his CEO experience making him someone who knows how to run things, embodies much of what is wrong with corporate america. He hired incompetent folks who obviously either let idealism, corner cutting, or outright embezzling get in the way of using a professional solution & performing proper testing prior to the last day of early voting when it became election day voting. Romney's CEO record deserves a huge chunk of the blame for his failure to hire, maintain, or require people that remain capable of making professional & responsible choices.

The difference between a repurposed box in the back room running on a Comcast cable connection & a professionally hosted & managed solution capable of handling a pathetic 1200 insert/select/whatever database requests per minute& quickly scaling up for unexpected load if need be is rather miniscule. So miniscule that saying "in the low three digits/month" is quite possbly going to be higher than need be

BTW, the geek response to this civic problem lets us know more than ever that as a class, whatever their race, geeks cannot be trusted to deliver tools for democracy neutrally.

catfitz40 wrote:

Geeks always blame "the suits". It is always "the marketing pukes" or "the incompetent bosses" or whatever.

catfitz40 wrote:

Then what are we to do to preserve a liberal, democratic system that has a range of political parties and isn't just dominated by geek rulers? Well?

I wouldn't have to worry about geeks-as-Democrats or geeks as anything if there hadn't been such a monumental, spectacular screw-up as the entire GOTV system crashing on the day of show for half of American voters. And I don't this is an isolated incident which we will see the end of; I think it will become the nature of our very lives. There's a sizeable faction of election-reform geeks who want to throw out the caucasus, the conventions, everything, and just have direct voting on the Internet, weighted like the Pirate Party's Liquid Democracy. I'm not for sitting back and letting that happen.

catfitz40 wrote:

So wait. Your geek friends can't face the American people when they take responsibility for their voting tools?

So wait. Obama's geeks can be known near and far and can take pride in their work because they won?

But the losing side's geeks have to hide and call any *accountability* for their action "a witch hunt"?

catfitz40 wrote:

And you're telling me we can't get accountability on the geeks on Romney's IT work? Hello?!

catfitz40 wrote:

Oh, my. Does Ars Technica have ideological purity of this nature? I had no idea.

catfitz40 wrote:

But I *am* interested in process. And I get *precious little* understanding of *process* from you all on a geeky forum like this, yanno? And that is frigging scary.

catfitz40 wrote:

Everybody gets why Al Gore's dev does not make the best man for Romney's ap job except you and your friends here.

catfitz40 wrote:

Mr. Ars Technica here feels it is his duty to come and vilify and slam Romney for his fail-whale campaign -- like 50 other lefty tekkie blogs or sites -- yet he never publishes the names of the devs. You seem to think that coders are extra-special people in society that never have to face the music -- except to take credit when they win and are in power. That's an awful recipe for authoritarianism. Who are you guys?!

catfitz40 wrote:

Sean Gallagher is a big journalist for a very high profile tech site that can make or break technologies and reputations and industries, and does every day, just like Wired or TechCrunch or whatever.

catfitz40 wrote:

And I'm afraid the answer will be -- and you've given every indication of this -- that geeks cannot be trusted to serve and provide us with a viable fair democracy that ensures plurality.

catfitz40 wrote:

Knock it off with the attacks.

Perhaps your fear and loathing of "geeks" and "lefty tekkie blogs or sites" explains the whining, screaming, table-pounding, accusatory, demanding tone of all of your posts. But given that tone, how could you expect to get anything but the response you have received? There may indeed be people on this forum who know the answers to your accus... uh, questions. I am not one of them, being an old retired guy, but if I were, I would not want to give the time of day to someone who writes as you do.

Your entire campaign here in this forum reminds me of a situation in the last place that I worked, one of the largest global hosting companies in the late '90s. This company was incredibly successful, growing 50% per year. Because of this growth, the pace was incredible; everyone was working 16+-hour days. Also caused by this growth, the company's stock quadrupled multiple times. Based on wealth derived from that, my boss retired.

When my new boss, "B", who had been hired from outside, took over, he brought in a consultant, "C". C and I went out to dinner, ostensibly just because we were both visiting HQ from out of town and would rather have company than not. It transpired that C's mission, as reportedly charged by B, was to find the "wankers" and "dead wood" in the organization so that B could get rid of them and "improve efficiency". C went on for some time in this vein, not for a moment questioning or doubting the rightness of this assignment, evidently hoping that I would volunteer some names of "wankers". I didn't, and I'm sure that C believed that I was circling the techno-wagons to protect my "dead wood" buddies. Actually, though, given the pace of work, the company naturally got rid of those who could not or would not keep up, so I had nothing to tell.

Apologies if I'm repeating anyone, but even if it were a plausible average, each of the 37,000 volunteer recruiters motivating 20 undecided voters is not even close to the 3+ million votes Romney needed (ignoring electoral impacts).

The tech project might not have helped the problem as much as hoped, but its unrealistic to assume the volunteers were ever going to mobilize an average of 90 or more undecided voters each in some sort of non-tech grass-roots "last stand".

She also singled out another developer who is African-American and "who has a 96 percent chance of being an Obama voter… I will be accused of 'racism' for even flagging. But it's the truth."

I will be accused of 'racism' for ... making the totally racist accusation that this developer can not be trusted because of their race ...

No. People who vote for Obama cannot be trusted to be enthusiastic and diligent in the Romney campaign.

That's very different than saying somebody can't be trusted due to their race. A black coder can be trusted to run systems for banks or colleges or restaurants or hospitals. Who cares? Race is immaterial to your ability and experience.

This is hysterical. The cognitive dissonance is absolutely mind-boggling.

You want to know what's REALLY funnysad? I went to the link to her blog in the Ars piece, and from there to her 3Dblogger profile:

Quote:

I find that my views on Internet policy, protection of intellectual property, the open source software cults, technocommunism, etc. often spark people to begin Google witch-hunting me to see if they can "get something" on me -- perhaps find that I am a member of the Tea Party or some right-wing faction or blog, or that I work for the government, or worse, some intelligence agency, or I'm flaking for some giant media company or the RIAA or that I'm some 1-percenter who is fabulously wealthy. Others who find their way to Encyclopedia Dramatica or my vandalized Wikipedia entry imagine that I might be a crazy cat lady or unemployed or pushing a shopping cart around -- when I'm not busy planning on how to devour my kids.

The poor girl is the victim of constant witch-hunts! People want to find out who she is and why she's doing terrible, terrible things! They want to expose her to the world for scorn and ridicule! Poor, innocent Catherine is being persecuted just for having her political views! You know, kind of like she's trying to do with the people behind Orca.

Apologies if I'm repeating anyone, but even if it were a plausible average, each of the 37,000 volunteer recruiters motivating 20 undecided voters is not even close to the 3+ million votes Romney needed (ignoring electoral impacts).

The tech project might not have helped the problem as much as hoped, but its unrealistic to assume the volunteers were ever going to mobilize an average of 90 or more undecided voters each in some sort of non-tech grass-roots "last stand".

I wouldn't worry about it. This sad diatribe is nothing but a desperate attempt to grasp at straws. A move by people too unwilling to admit that the platform as a whole was the failure. I use the term platform quite loosely, too. Especially since there was no single platform. Between Romney's book (No Apology) detailing his strategy (as well as his life prior to politics), how all that changed in his run for GOP nomination, and then how that all changed again in his run against Obama. I guess the majority couldn't stomach Mr "say anything to get elected" Romney either.

Apologies if I'm repeating anyone, but even if it were a plausible average, each of the 37,000 volunteer recruiters motivating 20 undecided voters is not even close to the 3+ million votes Romney needed.

Yeah, but they could have helped to offset the 2+ million votes that Romney lost to Jesus:

But I do ask about geeks who control our political process -- like these geeks did. The geeks broke at least part of the political process for half of America. That is a huge problem. I want names, and I want addresses. Outreach became dependent on a technology that broke.

First, if your outreach depends on software deployed on election day, you have bigger problems.

Second, Orca didn't break the political process for anyone; it didn't prevent people from voting, or phone-banking, or canvassing. All the failure did was deny the campaign some real-time information that would have been useful to fine-tune the GOTV effort on election day. But by that point the campaign was so far behind (no, Virginia, the polls weren't skewed, there really were that many more people who were voting Democrat than Republican) and so badly targeted that even if Orca had worked perfectly Romney still would have lost.

Third, why should you get those names and addresses? What makes you so goddamned special? What steps would you take with that information? Are you a law enforcement officer investigating a crime? Are you an attorney researching a case for a client? What legal basis do you have for that information?

You want to know why Romney lost? David "Axis of Evil" Frum nailed it perfectly on Morning Joe last week:

David Frum wrote:

Mitt Romney's message is I am going to take away Medicare from everybody under 55, I'm going to cut Medicaid for everybody but about a third, and I'm going to do that to finance a giant tax cut for me and my friends, and the reason I'm doing that is because half the country contribute nothing to the national endeavor.

No GOTV effort was going to save Romney (or the GOP Senate candidates who went down in flames). The software failure was incidental.

I worked in the defense industry during the war in Iraq, which I was opposed to from the beginning and grew more opposed to over time. Never once did it occur to me to let my opposition to the war and my increasing hatred of the Bush Administration affect my job performance.

Third, why should you get those names and addresses? What makes you so goddamned special?

Hey, this is catfitz40 we're talking about here. Who else would be able to fix computer problems by turning them on and off? Anybody I know would get that procedure backwards! I say let her at that database cluster and she'll have it sorted in no time. That must be step one in Oracle's troubleshooting manual, right? Or was that Palin's?

The coverage of this is the most hilarious reading I've done yet this campaign season. After last fall's Clown Car revolving 15 minutes of fame'ers, and the t'Rump and Mitt BFF mutual admiration society, and gaffe after gaffe after gaffe, this is the most holy of holys in Comedic Campaign World.

Thanks for all the laughs, Mitt. Enjoy your car elevator but watch out on the beaches of La Jolla. Your neighbors hate you and the sea life might want revenge just to clear their name of any association with you.

She also singled out another developer who is African-American and "who has a 96 percent chance of being an Obama voter… I will be accused of 'racism' for even flagging. But it's the truth."

I will be accused of 'racism' for ... making the totally racist accusation that this developer can not be trusted because of their race ...

No. People who vote for Obama cannot be trusted to be enthusiastic and diligent in the Romney campaign.

That's very different than saying somebody can't be trusted due to their race. A black coder can be trusted to run systems for banks or colleges or restaurants or hospitals. Who cares? Race is immaterial to your ability and experience.

This is hysterical. The cognitive dissonance is absolutely mind-boggling.

You want to know what's REALLY funnysad? I went to the link to her blog in the Ars piece, and from there to her 3Dblogger profile:

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I find that my views on Internet policy, protection of intellectual property, the open source software cults, technocommunism, etc. often spark people to begin Google witch-hunting me to see if they can "get something" on me -- perhaps find that I am a member of the Tea Party or some right-wing faction or blog, or that I work for the government, or worse, some intelligence agency, or I'm flaking for some giant media company or the RIAA or that I'm some 1-percenter who is fabulously wealthy. Others who find their way to Encyclopedia Dramatica or my vandalized Wikipedia entry imagine that I might be a crazy cat lady or unemployed or pushing a shopping cart around -- when I'm not busy planning on how to devour my kids.

The poor girl is the victim of constant witch-hunts! People want to find out who she is and why she's doing terrible, terrible things! They want to expose her to the world for scorn and ridicule! Poor, innocent Catherine is being persecuted just for having her political views! You know, kind of like she's trying to do with the people behind Orca.

Yeah, it took me awhile to remember her name. I knew it was familiar. She used to stir up the locals quite often on Second Life, to the point that some communities, to this day, call her a griefer.

She seems to enjoy being upset, and seems to enjoy pulling others into her personal vortex of unreality. I hate myself for falling for the bait the way I did.

I still say, if she manages to out the devs involved, she will be putting them in harm's way. But, as long as she gets the attention she wants, maybe she just doesn't care.

You want to know what's REALLY funnysad? I went to the link to her blog in the Ars piece, and from there to her 3Dblogger profile:

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I find that my views on Internet policy, protection of intellectual property, the open source software cults, technocommunism, etc. often spark people to begin Google witch-hunting me to see if they can "get something" on me -- perhaps find that I am a member of the Tea Party or some right-wing faction or blog, or that I work for the government, or worse, some intelligence agency, or I'm flaking for some giant media company or the RIAA or that I'm some 1-percenter who is fabulously wealthy. Others who find their way to Encyclopedia Dramatica or my vandalized Wikipedia entry imagine that I might be a crazy cat lady or unemployed or pushing a shopping cart around -- when I'm not busy planning on how to devour my kids.

The poor girl is the victim of constant witch-hunts! People want to find out who she is and why she's doing terrible, terrible things! They want to expose her to the world for scorn and ridicule! Poor, innocent Catherine is being persecuted just for having her political views! You know, kind of like she's trying to do with the people behind Orca.

For some reason I'm reminded of the "Editor of Lowellsfacts.com" with whom I had the pleasure of interacting with in this article:

Even that isn't true. Walk through a Staple's sometime and check out all the different types of paper clips.

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It's not at all absurd to ask a) why Al Gore's dev is doing the aps for Romney -- that's just plain common sense and good politics

Your definition of "common sense" and "good politics" is at variance with general usage.

For most of us, software development is our job; it's what we do to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. It would be goddamned stupid to throw that away over a political disagreement. Any software engineer/code monkey who deliberately "sabotaged" a product would be fired so quickly you'd hear the air pop as it filled in the hole, and their odds of anyone else hiring them goes way down.

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and b) whether sabotage/hacking/casual brutal neglect was at play in trying to help Romney get in touch with his constituents.

Occam's razor suggest "not really".

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There were lots of people who wanted him to lose -- and they weren't all in the Obama camp either, you know?

It's a mystery as to why Obama's software works and Romney's doesn't. Obama had a large scale task -- arguably larger. It didn't mess up.

There's no mystery at all; the software the Obama campaign used was initially developed back in 2008; they had a four year lead time on the group that developed Orca, who had all of six or seven months to go from a clean sheet to deployed product, which is an ambitious schedule.

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And before you get all misty-eyed and tell me about all the awesome source open source goodness, I was appalled to read today that Obama's campaign views this as closely-helded data/technology and do not hand it over to the DNC now and won't went Obama leaves office. I'm just dumbstruck by that.

Didn't Al Gore have a hand in launching the internet? Why are they even communicating over Al Gore's network? They left the barn doors wide open, is all.

I hate this meme. I don't kow if you were being snarky about Al Gore, or actually referencing the truth of his involvement. But either way, it's gotten to the point where even mentioning Al Gore and the internet bothers me.

Because he really should get credit for being an early visionary and proponent. But no, he didn't invent it. Nor did he ever claim to have invented it.

Please explain to me why having the names of the companies and devs known "puts them in harms way". They should take responsibility for their actions. No political campaign, left or right, should ever hire them again. This isn't just some consulting gig, it's the nation's democracy at stake. It's ok to demand quality control and loyalty of geeks.

What happens when the people who sabotaged or neglected Romney's ap and other site work are exposed? They never work for a Republican campaign again. That leaves them Democratic campaigns that are likely happy to hire them : )

There's also the larger issue of whether geeks and their gadgets are neutral, and whether they are dedicated to openness and pluralism or whether they just want to use their tools to win and take power. I fear the latter. This discussion has tended to confirm that.

As for Second Life, I'm harassed there by a small group of Anonymous/LulzSec people there and abuse-report them regularly, and they hate that. I don't grief anyone. If anything, it's interesting to see my documentation of the origins of this kind of movement that graduated from the virtuality of Second Life to go cause mayhem big time in the real world with sites from the Pentagon to Gawker. Hacker anarchism is a real problem and challenge to liberal democracy and you should care more about that.

My definition of common sense is a good one -- it's common. Yours is bizarre and binary and contorted, belonging to the geek world. We should continue to make sure this doesn't take over all of real life, it's a killer. Most normal people get it that you don't want Al Gore's people on Romney's campaign.

Yes, I was going to mention plastic paper clips and sizes of paper clips. These evolved slowly over time to suit *the customer's requirements*. The customer's requirements is often the last thing anyone especially in an open-source movement cares about because the customers are their own cadres, not the general public. Most software frustrates and angers users.

Your point about hardware isn't true. If I buy a microwave oven, it works for 10 years. I don't update it with software every week. But when we have the Internet of Things, I'll have to, which is one of the reasons I sound the alarm about this.

I'll fetch the comment from another forum that mentioned that Obama wasn't parting with the data and get back to you.

As for your touching portrayal of the software production class, it's not true. Most people in your class voted for Obama or Johnson. They are not for pluralism and securing the means for pluralism. And that's why my urgent questions here will increasingly be heard. If you don't want to hear them from me, understood. You'll hear them from others soon enough.

Contract structure influences programmers more than political leanings.

If the developer is a full time employee of the organization, then additional alignment causes the developer to optimize the work product around the organizations goals.

If the developer is a part time consultant, the tendency is to optimize the work product around project deliverables instead of organizational goals.

Can make a very big difference in outcomes and return on investment.

Yes, those are helpful comments. What is the take-home message then? Never have outsourced work? Never use outside consultants? Silicon Valley and other industries thrive on consultants, precisely so they can avoid long-term costs of payroll and benefits.

But I want to know what the Orca deliverables were in fact, and why they didn't include testing periods.

What happens when the people who sabotaged or neglected Romney's ap and other site work are exposed?

You keep asserting this as a fact, when you have presented no evidence. Stop doing this.

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There's also the larger issue of whether geeks and their gadgets are neutral, and whether they are dedicated to openness and pluralism or whether they just want to use their tools to win and take power. I fear the latter. This discussion has tended to confirm that.

This doesn't just toe the line of crazy conspiracy theories, it tap-dances across it with a side-helping of spirit fingers. You seem to be obsessed with bias somehow corrupting the political process, and for some reason seem to think that IT folks are more susceptible.

Look, I work for a government department. I also have independent political views that don't always mirror the government's policy priorities. In my career I have worked for both conservative and progressive governments, and have worked on a number of sensitive issues. And you know what? I keep my professional and personal beliefs separate because it's not my fucking job to question lawful government policy. Are you somehow suggesting that my advice and expertise are suspect because my views do not align with whatever political party is currently in power?

What you're proposing is insanity.

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As for Second Life, I'm harassed there by a small group of Anonymous/LulzSec people there and abuse-report them regularly, and they hate that. I don't grief anyone. If anything, it's interesting to see my documentation of the origins of this kind of movement that graduated from the virtuality of Second Life to go cause mayhem big time in the real world with sites from the Pentagon to Gawker. Hacker anarchism is a real problem and challenge to liberal democracy and you should care more about that.

You imply conspiracy. People with technical and procedural backgrounds are going to chuckle at you. The louder you get, the more likely those people become to ridicule you.

That's ok. People with technical and procedural backgrounds shouldn't run everything as they don't cover all of human life. I'm happy to get as loud as I can, but you won't hear it just from me.

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But you implied that having a black developer on staff was a "security risk" and "problematic." I realize you're probably lily-white and there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not the modern America. Half my father's family is WASP. I'm not quite (some Sicilian and Swede in me). Some of my cousins are African American; I'm not being euphemistic. They're half black Americans who were born in Africa. I have other cousins who are half Vietnamese or Hmong. On my mom's side I have half-Cuban cousins.

Once again, it's about having Obama voters working in the opposite side's campaign. Unfortunately, race has turned into a marker for political beliefs -- not my doing. What can be done to ensure that opposition to Obama has a level playing field? I think you're indicating that you don't think conservatives, whites, etc. should get to have a political party that competes fairly.

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For every vote you lose for being white, you pick up for being white (assuming your opponent is not white, then the race card isn't played at all).

But of course it's played. We're told, again, that white people and parties with white people are dead, which of course loses sight of the fact that the largest group of Obama voters are white, and even 35% of white men voted for Obama.

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There's also very little empirical evidence to support "old guys" and "southerners" voting for Obama. There is, obviously, plenty of empirical evidence that "rich guys" voted for him. The idea that there's some sort of economic line in the political sand is asinine. But Obama's supporters were by and large younger (under 55), less white, and northerners (California and Florida being what they are: outliers).

One of the hallmarks of the class warfare unleased by the Democrats and Occupy Wall Street is this notion that there is something wrong with the rich, and that rich guys are somehow the enemy. I guess they don't count Soros, who funds a lot of the leftist NGOs. I don't see how you can say CA and FL are outliers given their size or status as swing state, i.e. for Hispanics.

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No, I freely admit that being [color] and voting for a [color] president ipso facto is as stupid as voting down a party line.

Then you shouldn't have a problem admitting that hiring Al Gore's dev and Obama voters from various minorities isn't the best idea for the Romney campaign, and it creates a moral problem (or should) for the geek class who are Democrats and Obama voters. What, the Republicans have to start special computer schools for minorities where they raise them from birth to keep them loyal, like the Spartans? That would be crazy. There's an alternative: consulting firms can immediately respons with public statements assuring us of their professionalism and good will and competence in working for opposite political campaigns -- they didn't, and are hiding in the sand. There's an alternative: geeks can say, yes we see this is a problem and we tilt to the left and we should work harder at being fair and making sure that we don't eliminate pluralism in our society and a level playing field for all.

But we don't hear that from geeks or their consulting firms. Instead we hear, screw you, we won, you didn't, go away. That's scary.

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I think Affirmative Action is as detrimental to the development of minorities in this country, but it's not simply because it's judging a person by the color of their skin. It's primarily because it's a salve that fails to address the underlying problems that generate this state of existence where minorities actually need something like Affirmative Action to offset the disadvantages they face in key aspects of education.

You can't wish away affirmative action, which I believe is going to fail even in that Texas court case going on now and be re-affirmed. Perhaps when Obama himself fails to address the underlying problems of blacks in this country regarding jobs, education, health, we will see this more clearly in four years.

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But don't assume they're all uneducated, or ill-informed, or should "in no way be influencing any sort of policy," because that is the equivalent of me saying you should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and leave the politicking to the men. (I'm not. I genuinely believe that having women involved in political discourse is important.) My black cousins are all college graduates. Three of them have graduate degrees. They are all employed. One is a software developer.

Er, I'm not the one who said they were all ill-informed and uneducated. You did. I think there's an opposite problem -- they are very well educated, starting with PBS and Sesame street, going through Marxist curricula (like Eric Foner), proceeding through Marxist professors in university, and arriving in well-paying jobs like Charles Blow has at the New York Times. Education, indeed. Just not pluralistic and not critical.

You keep asserting this as a fact, when you have presented no evidence. Stop doing this.

Er, the evidence is that the software broke and screwed up Romney's campaign GOTV efforts. This may not be the only reason he lost, surely, but it's a big factor and bears examination. You keep avoiding scrutiny of this. Stop that

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This doesn't just toe the line of crazy conspiracy theories, it tap-dances across it with a side-helping of spirit fingers. You seem to be obsessed with bias somehow corrupting the political process, and for some reason seem to think that IT folks are more susceptible.

We're finding that in fact they are. Consulting firms tend to be fill up with Obama voters. How does that happen? Even those with Republican clients.

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Look, I work for a government department. I also have independent political views that don't always mirror the government's policy priorities. In my career I have worked for both conservative and progressive governments, and have worked on a number of sensitive issues. And you know what? I keep my professional and personal beliefs separate because it's not my fucking job to question lawful government policy. Are you somehow suggesting that my advice and expertise are suspect because my views do not align with whatever political party is currently in power?

I don't believe you, number one, and number two, the problem is that we now face a situation in which vast hordes of people like yourself are in power of the technology of public debate and democracy, and you don't represent diverse political views. You represent *one* party. You represent even one *faction* of that party. And that means the rest of us do not live in a fair world. I'm suggesting that no other political party can expect to get in power if you control all the administrative resources. You imagine that at least two parties, with varying factions in them, goes on forever, untouched, whereas in fact, we're now in a different world where the president's Blackberry, which we know very little about, wires up to people with vast data bases of material they've mined from people, which we have no public oversight of, and which the DNC can't even claim as its own. This is a big problem for democracy. You appear tone-deaf towards it.

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What you're proposing is insanity.

I suppose anything that involves you and your class having to concede some of your power to others will be something you "scientists" label as "insane," sure.

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You seem to be obsessed. This isn't healthy.

No, I just documented the fact that the people who used to merely bother the John Edwards campaign in Second Life, or minor bloggers like me who criticized them went on to much bigger things like hacking the Pentagon or Sony. That's all. Virtuality is used as a kind of testing ground.

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p.s. stop using terms such as Marxist. You don't know what they mean.

I suspect I know a lot more about what they mean, and first-hand, than you do, but that's another topic outside this list. I'm concerned about Al Gore's dev in a consulting firm being responsible for anything involved with Romney. His heart isn't in it.

Please explain to me why having the names of the companies and devs known "puts them in harms way".

Tea Partiers used to hold demonstrations targeted at Gaby Giffords. One of their slogans was "one way or another, you're gone".

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They should take responsibility for their actions. No political campaign, left or right, should ever hire them again. This isn't just some consulting gig, it's the nation's democracy at stake. It's ok to demand quality control and loyalty of geeks.

They simply didn't have enough time to implement what was requested of them, and apparently the project-management sucked. So why should they take the fall for this? If I tell builders that they have two weeks to build me a home from scratch, and the end-result sucks, should I blame the builders, or should I blame my unreasonable demands?

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What happens when the people who sabotaged or neglected Romney's ap and other site work are exposed? They never work for a Republican campaign again. That leaves them Democratic campaigns that are likely happy to hire them : )

Some republican loonie who thinks that they "sabotaged" Romneys campaign might but a bullet through their head.

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There's also the larger issue of whether geeks and their gadgets are neutral, and whether they are dedicated to openness and pluralism or whether they just want to use their tools to win and take power. I fear the latter. This discussion has tended to confirm that.

Ah, so "geeks" are now tyrants in disguise bent on world domination? And they are using Obama as their puppet?

Consulting firms tend to be fill up with Obama voters. How does that happen? Even those with Republican clients

Given the fact that Obama won both EC & popular votes, that statement likely holds true of the vast majority of businesses in the nation regardless of who is buying their product/service. If ford/gm/etc made the most incredible vehicle for Romney, only to have reports that he failed to make it somewhere because the gas empty light was on & the check engine one had been flashing for the last several months because it needed an oil change years ago... the problem has nothing to do with the fact that those companies may have hired one or more people who later voted for the candidate who won the popular vote; Instead it was because the car very obviously ran out of gas & had been running for months with no oil

Er, the evidence is that the software broke and screwed up Romney's campaign GOTV efforts.

No, this is what you said:

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What happens when the people who sabotaged or neglected Romney's ap and other site work are exposed?

Where is your evidence that people sabotaged Romney's app? Oh, right...

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Consulting firms tend to be fill up with Obama voters. How does that happen? Even those with Republican clients.

Evidence? Sources?

Mark_oo wrote:

Look, I work for a government department. I also have independent political views that don't always mirror the government's policy priorities. In my career I have worked for both conservative and progressive governments, and have worked on a number of sensitive issues. And you know what? I keep my professional and personal beliefs separate because it's not my fucking job to question lawful government policy. Are you somehow suggesting that my advice and expertise are suspect because my views do not align with whatever political party is currently in power?

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I don't believe you, number one

quelle surprise.

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and number two, the problem is that we now face a situation in which vast hordes of people like yourself are in power of the technology of public debate and democracy, and you don't represent diverse political views.

I didn't realise I am part of a vast horde. It's even more surprising to discover that I am in possession of the power over the technology of public debate and democracy. My Mum is going to be so proud.

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You represent *one* party. You represent even one *faction* of that party.

Do I? I don't even live in the US. I'm a public servant in a completely different country.

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I suppose anything that involves you and your class having to concede some of your power to others will be something you "scientists" label as "insane," sure.

Please explain to me why having the names of the companies and devs known "puts them in harms way". They should take responsibility for their actions. No political campaign, left or right, should ever hire them again. This isn't just some consulting gig, it's the nation's democracy at stake. It's ok to demand quality control and loyalty of geeks.

Actually a consulting gig is exactly what it is. if they want anyone to trust them in the future, they do quality work. That's all there is to it.

catfitz40 wrote:

What happens when the people who sabotaged or neglected Romney's ap and other site work are exposed?

You assume that neglect or sabotage are the only valid reasons for software failure. Clearly you have no knowledge of the process of software development and testing. This is part of what makes you sound batshit crazy.

catfitz40 wrote:

There's also the larger issue of whether geeks and their gadgets are neutral, and whether they are dedicated to openness and pluralism or whether they just want to use their tools to win and take power. I fear the latter. This discussion has tended to confirm that.

So now geeks are a)their own class and b)seeking to control everything and take over? Yeah, that's not a fever dream at all. Seriously, if you aren't medicated you need to find a doctor who will prescribe you a lot of shit b/c you are completely fucking nuts lady.

catfitz40 wrote:

Then you shouldn't have a problem admitting that hiring Al Gore's dev and Obama voters from various minorities isn't the best idea for the Romney campaign, and it creates a moral problem (or should) for the geek class who are Democrats and Obama voters. What, the Republicans have to start special computer schools for minorities where they raise them from birth to keep them loyal, like the Spartans? That would be crazy. There's an alternative: consulting firms can immediately respons with public statements assuring us of their professionalism and good will and competence in working for opposite political campaigns -- they didn't, and are hiding in the sand. There's an alternative: geeks can say, yes we see this is a problem and we tilt to the left and we should work harder at being fair and making sure that we don't eliminate pluralism in our society and a level playing field for all.

Again, you are assuming corruption where there is absolutely no proof of any. The burden of proof is on you and you don't have a fucking ounce of it.

catfitz40 wrote:

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You keep asserting this as a fact, when you have presented no evidence. Stop doing this.

Er, the evidence is that the software broke and screwed up Romney's campaign GOTV efforts. This may not be the only reason he lost, surely, but it's a big factor and bears examination. You keep avoiding scrutiny of this. Stop that

No really, you are assuming sabotage or some form of intentional neglect is the only valid reason for software to break. This is why no one with any technical knowledge is taking you seriously. That and b/c your fever dreams of conspiracy make you appear batshit crazy.

catfitz40 wrote:

What you're proposing is insanity.

I suppose anything that involves you and your class having to concede some of your power to others will be something you "scientists" label as "insane," sure.[/quote]

We write and/or test software, that hardly gives us a ton of power. Geeks are not a class either BTW.

catfitz40 wrote:

I'm concerned about Al Gore's dev in a consulting firm being responsible for anything involved with Romney. His heart isn't in it.

So you know what goes on inside this man's mind? The Great Carnak has risen and been reborn!!

There's also the larger issue of whether geeks and their gadgets are neutral, and whether they are dedicated to openness and pluralism or whether they just want to use their tools to win and take power. I fear the latter. This discussion has tended to confirm that.

Ah, so "geeks" are now tyrants in disguise bent on world domination? And they are using Obama as their puppet?

P1. Reality has a well-known liberal bias.P2. Geeks and their gadgets are part of reality.